cbread

Interesting. So far, owners of Modernist Cuisine who here identify themselves as either amateur or professional are running about ten to one amateur vs pro.

There's pressure, and there's pressure. My large roasting pan has a cover that fits nicely enough that when some moisture wets the juncture between top and bottom, heating the vessel will make a series of small bubbling sounds that signal a very very slight excess pressure inside the vessel. But, that said, that tiny pressure is by no means enough to raise the boiling point - and thus cooking temperature - in any useful way. To obtain a useful boost over atmospheric pressure requires a sealed system that can hold a lot of pressure, enough pressure to demand a pressure release for safety reasons. Neither tagines nor my roasting pan have the slightest claim to be valid "pressure cooking" vessels.

Floor plans (or sketches) could be useful too.

Ok, a very well insulated beer cooler, and some zip freezer bags. Super cheap, since I had the cooler anyway. Add hot water and I've been able to do my first sous vide cookery, chicken breast, without circulator or vac sealer. Dip the bags with the chicken breast into a cool pot of water to squeeze the air out as I slide the "zipper" to closed position. Then heat water to needed temperature on the stove and dump it into the cooler. Add bags to cooler. Check temperature five minutes later and correct for initial temperature drop. Subsequent temperature drop runs only a couple of degrees an hour. Easily manageable. Beer cooler sous vide has been dubbed ghetto vide elsewhere on the net. GF calls it redneck sous vide.

Sounds good to me.

My favorite modernist cooking tip isn't particularly specific, nor does it feel all that modernist. Reading between the lines in "Modernist Cuisine" and "ideas In Food", there is a pervasive underlying thrust to reexamine every part of the process, every ingredient, every tool and technique, in every step, all to see if there may exist some better way. Not modernist at all, except that doing so does tend to push aside the traditional, when traditional ideas happen to be weak. I'm not much of a cook, but the effort is rewarding nonetheless.

Modernist Cuisine mentions that a frequent cause of uneven heating of the bottom of pots is a mismatch between the size of the pot and the size of the burner. I'm guessing that heavy metal discs over a burner and under a pot might mitigate the occasional big burner / small pot mismatch. Other than that, good pots well matched to the burners should not need that sort of remediation. But to get the effect of a super low flame a metal disc might work.

My not so local, local market's house brand half and half is milk, cream and disodium phosphate. I'm going to have to go check out what the heavy cream is made of.

Not fancy, but really easy for you to make and can generate elements for a bunch of meals spaced over however much time to not get repetitive; meatballs can make all sorts of things like meatball subs, soups with meatballs, spaghetti with meatballs. The end uses are pretty diverse and the meatballs can be frozen uncooked or cooked.

I often use plates as a cover over some pot on the stove. The trapped steam beneath warms the plates nicely. Just before service I use a towel to remove the condensed steam droplets underneath. I will often put a folded towel on top of the top plate as an insulator to keep heat in the plates. I usually cook for just one or two, so I am not trying to heat a stack of plates.

Interesting question, "What's a cookbook?". As for Modernist Cuisine ? If "cookbook" is taken in an inclusive sense, sure, Modernist Cuisine is a cookbook, and will be hard to surpass for 2011. If one defines "cookbook" as something very much like what we usually see when we look at a cookbook, primarily a collections of recipes and some additional connected text, then Modernist Cuisine might be something slightly other. I'm not sure it is a good idea to narrow a thread like this by excluding one or another book from discussion. But in the next breath, it's clear to me at least that MC is not a good fit to the category of cookbooks as we usually see them - an ordinary collection of recipes. Modernist Cuisine feels to me more like a sort of meta-cookbook - an almost encyclopedic overview on recent modernist trends, tools, and techniques. Yes, it does happen to have a great numbers of recipes, but I don't think of them as the main thrust of the book. It is more of a "how to", and a "why" book than a recipe collection. But to me it is still a cookbook. Modernist Cuisine and Ideas in food are my two. Modernist Cuisine for enormous educational and reference value. Ideas in Food for packing tremendous punch in a modestly sized package. I will be greatly surprised (and pleased) if any further book comes along this year to influence me as much as these two.

Had the alternative been available locally at the time, I would have bought Staub. As it was I bought the metal handles at the same time as I got LC pots.

You could precook as needed the veggies and then stuff the chicken for SV.

Gorgeous!

NH, USA, rural, interested amateur.

Does Modernist Cuisine count as zero cookbooks since it is a book about cooking? Or is it one cookbook, or six? Depending upon that, I've added 18 or 19 or 24 cookbooks since my last confession.

Glanced all over and then went for the section on meat.Amazing book. So much information it's like drinking from a fire hose.

These - Winco GP-1 http://www.restaurant-services.com/images/smallware/Garlic-Press.jpg - work well. Under various brand names they are available in supermarkets and restaurant supply stores for $4 to $6 or so. They do better than most of the fancy units that cost a lot more. They don't squish garlic around the sides of the "piston". The handles long enough to give lots of leverage and are strong and won't break. They clean up easily. They're cheap.

My copy has just arrived and I have had time merely to glance at a few pages and found things to learn no matter where I happened to open the book. So much information hard to find elsewhere makes me grateful to the entire Cooking Lab team!

That Electrolux Mini Combi Oven looks beautiful. I'm guessing it is aimed at the commercial market?

Pierogi - I doubt that the average home cook has the slightest idea that non-standard tools, equipment and techniques exist, let alone that they might offer benefits. I've seen how technology averse most people are whenever they are dealing with the unfamiliar. Math and science frighten and bore people here. The only way microwave ovens ever sold was through dumbed down simplicity and convenience. I hope you're right about the kitchen of the future, but note that in the US the best cell phones we have would be tossed out as garbage in much of the rest of the world. slkinsey - I don't think people are putting in fancier stoves. I think people are putting in fancier looking stoves. The actual functions are largely unchanged. Maybe they offer more automation, programs in the interface, but actual improvements in temperature control, steam, real broiling capacity, how they cook are rare. But, maybe there's hope to be seen in the widening adoption of convection ovens? Fat Guy - I think the demographic for people who really like to cook and who actively seek out new information, tools and techniques might be some very small percent like 1 or two persons in 10,000. Over the whole population in the US that's 30,000 to 60,000. If those folks totally replace every kitchen item every ten years, that's a market for three to six thousand high performance ovens (or whatever) a year for a few dozen makers to fight over. My guess is that the size of the market is too small for most companies to take a run at. I hope I'm wrong.

America's Test Kitchen's methods and ratings vary from wonderfully helpful to irrational. I now pay no attention to their commentary on cookware and appliances. Egullet is a far better place to sort out those things. Witness this thread.

I'm not optimistic about getting home cooks to try new things. I have had no luck persuading friends to use weight based measurement. I'd give my eye teeth to have accurate oven temperatures that don't rocket back and forth umpteen degrees. That's where I think the manufacturers could go next, simple accuracy. More quality too. But I do like to dream... It would be the stuff of dreams to have a steam/combi oven, a rotovap, salamander, centrifuge... Kitchen appliances marketed to the consumer are too often disappointing, poorly designed, poorly built, and unreliable. They appear aimed at the lowest common denominator.

Seems like a review of the movie by someone who has read part of an article about the trailer.

Wouldn't aluminum pins be better? More than ten times better than SS for thermal conductivity.